Exotic Fair of a Wandering Muse

WotM Anniversary Contests Rules!

Angela Caperton — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:13:41 GMT

Please the Goddess or Die.
Did the Earth Move for You?

WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
by Angela Caperton
From eXtasy Books

One year ago, I was a nervous mother. My publisher released my baby, Woman of the Mountain, out into the world. And like most parents, I've learned so much through the adventures and misadventures of my loving creation, and I'm still learning as more and more readers are exposed to my little fable of sexual sacrament and the power of love.

A year later, I'm a proud parent. Woman of the Mountain has been well-reviewed and won the 2008 Eppie Award for Best Erotica. So, I wanted to mark the one-year anniversary of the release with a few contests!

1^st Way to Win:

On May 16^th, go to The Romance Studio and enter their Book-A-Day Giveaway for an opportunity to win a copy of Woman of the Mountain! If you select to receive emails from the donors (of which I am one!) I will also include you in the pool to win another prize! See "Bonus" below!

2^nd Way to Win:

This is VERY easy. Sign up for my bright, shiny, new Newsletter before May 25^th, 11:59PM Eastern time. From those that subscribe by deadline I will randomly pick one winner to receive a $10 gift certificate from eXtasy Books !

To subscribe send an email to: AngelaCaperton_Newsletter-subscribe @ yahoogroups.com (no space before or after the @ sign)

Wait, there's more! Keep reading, my friends...

3^rd Way to Win:

You're going to have to work for this one! I love treasure hunts, and for this contest, pull out your shovel and compass! It's time to hunt up the answers to 10 questions. Up for grabs here: the winner's choice of 1 of the following gift certificates/gift cards:

$25 gift certificate from eXtasy Books

$25 gift certificate to The English Rose (on line store)

$25 gift card from Barnes & Noble

$25 gift card from Borders Books

Like all good treasure hunts, you need a place to search! A hint: All 10 answers can be found on my web page, or my blog! When you have your 10 answers, send them in an email to: muse @ angelacaperton.com (no spaces) and in the subject line write: "WOTM Anniversary Contest".

Here are the questions!

1. What was Drake's first Vocabulary word?

2. What DVD was I watching when I had the initial idea for Woman of the Mountain?

3. What graphic novel did I review on my blog?

4. What was Anthony Comstock the founder of?

5. What online magazine will publish my short story "Caveat Emptor" on May 26^th?

6. Where can you find a Podcast of an excerpt from Woman of the Mountain?

7. What animal has the largest penis in proportion to body size?

8. What television show helped shape the setting for The Passions of Pearl?

9. What famous painting influenced my first erotic release, Inspiration?

10. What is the name of the Goddess in Woman of the Mountain?

All entries must be received by May 25^th, 11:59PM Eastern Time. One entry per person, please.

The Bonus Prize!

All those that asked to receive emails from donors on the TRS Book-a-Day Giveaway on May 16th, those that subscribe to my newsletter independently before May 30^th, and all those that correctly answer the questions to the treasure hunt by the deadline (May 25^th) will be combined and I will randomly chose a winner for a surprise bonus prize!

Good luck everyone, and good sex, and good reading!

Contests for Woman of the Mountain Anniversary!

Angela Caperton — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:09:43 GMT

Well, my friends, it's about that time. On May 16th, it will be the one year publishing anniversary of my award winning erotic fantasy, Woman of the Mountain!

For the anniversary, I plan a couple contests for some great prizes.

The contests start and end dates will be announced later, so keep your eyes peeled here, on my Coffee Time Forum, and on the various Yahoo groups I belong to for details!

There will be two contests, plus, don't forget, you can win a copy of Woman of the Mountain from The Romance Studio on May 16th in their wonderful Book-a-Day giveaway!

The prizes for the contests will include a $10 gift certificate to eXtasy Books, a $25 gift certificate to The English Rose, and a surprise bonus prize!

So, check back soon and join me celebrating one year of sexual divinity!

Please the Goddess or Die.
Did the Earth Move for You?

Wet Dreams

Angela Caperton — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:00:52 GMT

I know it’s not every writer’s cup of tea, but I enjoy research. Honestly, you just never know what you might learn when you’re hunting up a factoid or the date of some historical event. I’ve dozens of story ideas I’ve jotted down while researching, and a few of those ideas are just itching to be made into a tale.

Recently while working on my latest novel, I needed a little more information about barnacles. Having grown up on a boat, trust me, I learned about barnacles before most kids learned that mice are mammals. For anyone who owns a boat or lives on the ocean, the Battle of the Barnacle is ceaseless, costly and ultimately, a lost cause. For those unfamiliar with these little marine arthropods, they attach themselves to anything in the water – dock pilings, the bottoms of ocean going vessels, rocks, hell, even whales! Their shell is thin, but very hard, and their “mouth” is often jagged and sharp.

So, off I go, Googling my favorite marine nuisance and wow, what do I find out?

Little ole crusty barnacles are sexual GIANTS!

Yes, folks, take note. Sometimes size can be deceiving. Barnacles have the longest penises of any animal, proportional to their body size!

You heard me right. These little marine bugs have penises that can be up to 8 times their body length.

8 times!

I know that little statistic sent some rather delicious thoughts flooding through my head, but oh, my word, not so much as the next little tidbit I learned!

Barnacles can change the shape of their penises to match the environment they’re living in. Calmer water allows for a longer, thinner penis. Rougher water needs something thicker to um, stand up against the surf.

Deep breaths. Deep, even breaths.

Now, the idea of a human male penis that is 8 times the body size of a man is…well, grotesque and creepy, but the idea of a man being able to change the shape of his penis is VERY entertaining.

Oh, did I mention that barnacles are hermaphrodites, but copulate with their neighbors, so these little crustaceans enjoy the best of both worlds.

Talk about wet dreams…

(Source: National Geographic)

Burning Issues -- A Book review

Drake — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:48:14 GMT

Everyone loves a bonfire.

Some people really love a bonfire when it's burning something -- or someone -- they don't approve of.

Who would think that, within a decade of the Nazis giving book burning a bad name, mobs of gleeful American children, lead by nuns, ministers, and other do-gooders would be burning books in American village squares?

Of course they were only burning comic books …

David Hajdu's splendid new volume, The Ten-Cent Plague: the Great Comic Book Scare and how it Changed America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 334 pages, with another 100 pages of notes, $26), chronicles the hysteria that swirled around "crime comics" in the late 40s and early 50s. His book is fascinating, a little scary, and stunningly well-researched. Besides going back to the original source material -- Congressional records, local papers, hysterical articles and books -- Hajdu has tracked down some of the grown ups who were once book burning zealots as well as some of the comic book artists and writers whose careers were ruined by the madness.

The story he tells, in short, is one of a generational shift and the opening salvos of a war that raged for at least the next couple of decades. He draws a line between the persecution of kid culture and the radicalization of a generation, stopping well short of claiming that comics and their censorship were causes of the change, proclaiming them more of a symptom or a preview.

It's a fair claim, I think.

The hysteria over comics was somewhat understandable. They were vulgar, sexy, insanely violent, and many of them featured unsavory characters living criminal lives (though they nearly always suffered in the end). But the child psychologists (the leader of the pack was a doctor named Fredric Wertham, who is quite a fascinating character in his own right) and frothing editorial writers were fundamentally disturbed by most comics -- not just the overtly unpleasant ones. The suspiciously Aryan Superman encouraged vigilantism. Batman recruited young boys into homosexuality. Romance comics taught girls to be rebellious against their moms and dads.

At least two people were arrested for selling a comic that made fun of Santa Claus.

Although Hajdu makes his case, someone more sympathetic with the book burners might tell you that this story truly does represent the end of America's age of innocence, that the crusade to stop evil comics was a futile effort to dam the wave of filth that would soon engulf the nation's young -- rock and roll, surf movies, Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse, Ice T, Grand Theft Auto … the list is ever-growing.

Still, one would think the book burners would have learned by the 1950s. You can't stop culture with bonfires.

The best culture feeds on heat.

eXtasy Authors' Day at the Latte Lounge!

Angela Caperton — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:54:45 GMT

Join me and my fellow eXtasy authors at Coffee Time Romances Latte Lounge. We'll share excerpts, book covers, news and expect a few give aways!

Click here to find the Latte Lounge!

I will be there briefly early in the morning, and then in the evening after I stage my escape from the mines.

Also, while you're there, check out my own Coffee Time Forum!

I hope to see you there!

Drake's Vocabulary - Comstockery

Drake — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:08:42 GMT

Censorship of literature and other forms of expression and communication because of perceived immorality or obscenity.
-American Heritage Dictionary

This is one of those cases where the meaning preceded the word and a particular individual arose from the ranks of common men to give his name to overzealous virtue and to define American morality in a manner that still haunts us today.

Do you ever feel that America is hypocritical in its attitudes toward sex? That we as a nation are afraid and ashamed of our own bodies and appetites?

One of the men you should thank is a United States Postal Service "Special Agent" named Anthony Comstock, founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1873. Mr. Comstock helped pass the first laws to regulate matter that could be sent through the US Mail -- obscene matter, lascivious pictures, and anything related to birth control.

In his day, Comstock had special powers granted him by the federal government to patrol post offices and confiscate anything he found objectionable and he seems to have found plenty to offend. His pursuit and eradication of birth control information very quickly set him against the growing women's movement and he persecuted Margaret Sanger and Victoria Woodhull among others. He hated Socialists too, which puts him right in line with the bluest noses of our modern world. Comstock bragged about driving at least a dozen people to suicide and was an idol to young J. Edgar Hoover.

So who coined the word? It was playwright, worldly philosopher,
and bon vivant George Bernard
Shaw who said, "Comstockery
is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States.
Europe likes to hear of such things.
It confirms the deep-seated
conviction of the Old World that
America is a provincial place, a second-rate country-town
civilization after all."

In the manner of many vile
creatures, Comstock lived a long
time, practicing his unholy trade
well into the 20^th Century. The

Comstock Law -- forbidding the sending of lewd material through the mail -- is still on the books. Its ban on sending contraceptives or contraceptive information was repealed in 1936, but the law still forbids the spreading of information about abortion. As recently as 1996, Republican Henry Hyde amended the law to extend the ban on advertising abortion to the Internet. Comstock's legacy is alive and well at the FCC since Janet Jackson's nipple threatened a nation.

Mr. Comstock is pictured above, stripped for action at your local post office.

Honor him.

J. Edgar Hoover would.

BBOC MM BDSM

Angela Caperton — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:29:14 GMT

My partner Drake has a passion for older comics, men's magazines, etc. and in his hunt for new acquisitions he came across this cover and shared it with me.

Me, well...being me, looked at this cover and saw a more...colorful take on the scene presented.

Buffalo Bill and the Old Chinaman!

Male/Male BDSM Orgy!

Ropes! Surrender! Lust!

Don't you think a title like that would have sold a few extra copies?

It's an EPPIE!

Angela Caperton — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:10:10 GMT

Just had to share...

Woman of the Mountain
2008 EPPIE
BEST EROTICA

Join me at Romance Junkies March 20th!

Angela Caperton — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:17:36 GMT

Join me Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 9PM Eastern for the monthly Romance Junkies Chat with eXtasy Authors. I will be one of the Featured Authors!

I'd love to see you all there!

You can find the chat here.

See you Thursday!

EPPIE WINNER! - Woman of the Mountain

Angela Caperton — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:25:07 GMT

Don't even try to bring me down right now. Your efforts would be totally wasted!

My erotic fantasy, Woman of the Mountain, won the 2008 EPPIE Award for
best Erotica!! (Learn more about the EPPIE Awards here.)

Yes, there was champagne and lots of smiles and laughter and
back-patting, but not right away. Oh no...I had to wait this sucker
out and it's been hell on my fingernails and nerves. But that's okay!
Right now, I am too high on life to care. My manicurist can rake me
over the coals later.

So...want the scoop? Have some champagne and I'll tell you a story.

In 2006 I had this idea for a story after a late night viewing of a
rather extreme Japanese samurai movie (no, I wasn't on drugs at the
time, honest!) I started to piece together this erotic novel where sex
and pleasure were the cornerstones of a civilization. At that time,
my erotic novella, Inspiration, had just been published by eXtasy
Books so I was confident I could find a home for this unusual tale.

Long days, midnight oil, edits, more edits, etc, etc, finally Woman of
the Mountain is released by eXtasy Books in May of 2007. I was
thrilled. But two months later, an email from my publisher informed
me that WotM really wasn't doing well sales wise. Gently, my
publisher suggested that maybe my next piece should be more geared
toward what the readers were buying - erotic paranormals, vampire
stories, shifters. WotM was none of these things, and it was then I
started to understand how far out on limb eXtasy had gone with
publishing WotM.

I was, needless to say, pretty down in the dumps. My publisher liked
the story enough to put it out there to the world, but the world
didn't seem to really give a rip.

A few weeks later, the first review came in for WotM. It was a good
review, and the one that followed was absolutely glowing. That
certainly helped my disposition considerably! I was well into working
on The Passions of Pearl when my publisher sent a mass message to all
the eXtasy authors encouraging us to enter our stories released in
2007 to the EPIC (Electronically Published Internet Connection) 2008
EPPIE Awards.

I mulled. I pondered. I entered. That was in September 2007. I
learned through an email (see blog entry below) in December, that WotM
made the cut! It was a Finalist in the Erotica Category! I was over
the moon when I got the news, especially since I was still coming to
terms with a less-than-awesome review of WotM (what can I say...I'm a
perfectionist! If it's not great, I'm obviously an utter failure!
Yeah...I'm working on that...). I was already checking out Expedia
and Travelocity, making my arrangements to travel to Portland for the
EPICon and the award ceremony. I was stoic (yeah, right...) about it.
Win or lose, EPICon would be fun!

EPICon was months away. I designed advertising, I posted on boards, I
did everything but scream from the roof of city hall (they caught me
on the stairs to the roof, dammit!) that my story was a Finalist!

Unfortunately, sometimes Fate (most times Fate?) doesn't always agree
with what we have planned. Life intervened and my plans to travel to
Portland had to be scrapped. I would have to sit back in my living
room and wait.

And wait.

March 8th came....and went.... No word. After a sleepless night, I
woke WAY too early (even with the damn hour jump ahead taken into
account!) and there in my email box, a note from my publisher. Unable
to attend herself, she'd received a note from one of the eXtasy
authors at the conference, WotM had won the EPPIE for the best
Erotica!

I was stunned, ecstatic, I think I said, "Oh my God!" about 30 times.
I raced to the EPIC group board to see it officially!

Nothing.

Nada.

Okay...they were West Coast. It was still early. I could handle this. Really.

9 hours later...

Yep, folks, it's for real! Woman of the Mountain is the winner of the
2008 EPPIE for Best Erotica!

And I am seeking a condo on Cloud 9. Anyone know a place with an ocean view?

Drake's Vocabulary -- Zombie

Drake — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:44:23 GMT

Lurching through the consciousness of America, the zombie has become a mainstay of modern pop culture. The word is certainly of African origin and may have originally been the name of a god. There are similar words for ghosts or spirits in a number of African languages.

But the zombies that invaded America in the 1930s came from Haiti. In 1929, American writer William Seabrook published a book called The Magic Island, a sensational account of his experiences among the Culte des Mortes or voodoo practitioners of Haiti. The book was popular and Seabrook's stories about zombies, dead men who had allegedly been restored to life to act as mindless laborers, caught the public imagination. Believers considered these resurrections magic while rationalists believed they were caused by a drug.

Although mostly forgotten today, Seabrook was a famous -- and somewhat notorious -- figure in his day. Best known as an author of exotic travelogues -- Adventures in Arabia and Jungle Ways -- he was part of the wide-ranging post-World War I literary and artistic circle that is usually called the Lost Generation. A friend and student of magician Aleister Crowley, Seabrook practiced a kind of bondage magick with a series of willing mistresses and wives. His occult enthusiasms bore fruit in his 1940 book Witchcraft, Its Power in the World Today, a stunning catalog of sorcerous practices from around the world. Seabrook's magic was based in psychology, on the innate power of the mind to exert its will over another's consciousness through the power of suggestion.

"Zombie" very quickly gave its name to a cocktail -- presumably because of its mind-numbing effect -- and the animated dead began to appear in plays and films. In 1932, a small production company in Hollywood made White Zombie, starring Bela Lugosi, fresh from Dracula, and the film was a huge success, driving the word deeper into the public psyche. A succession of zombie films followed, the word having enough currency that it appeared in the titles of films that had nothing whatsoever to do with the walking dead or Haiti.

Perhaps the best and most notable of the 30s and 40s zombie flicks is I Walked with a Zombie, produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. With a plot borrowed from Jane Eyre, a script that is almost poetic, and beautiful, moody cinematography, Tourneur's film is probably the high tide mark of the old school zombie.

Today, the meaning of "zombie" has changed considerably. After a brief resurgence of the voodoo-themed zombie in the non-fiction book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, by Wade Davis (and a wildly fictionalized film version by Wes Craven), zombies have become their own genre of horror film. Tracing a lineage from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, through a gory smear of Italian horror spectacles, zombies have become mainstays of comic books, movies, and video games.

Trading on archetypes as old as human societies, the humble zombie has moved out of the cane field and into the shopping mall. The power of mass media has projected a creature of local folklore into the universal consciousness of the modern world.

Willie Seabrook should be proud.

The Passions of Pearl - Available on Valentine's Day!

Angela Caperton — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:40:53 GMT

Available Valentine's Day!
from eXtasy Books

Go ahead...take a bite!
Buy Here!

Can you hold a dream within a cup?

What about seven dreams in seven cups, one for each of the miners at the Bighorn rooming house, where pretty young Pearl works as a housemaid and cook?

See what happens when aphrodisiac magic promises to turn fantasy into sensuous reality, as Pearl indulges in forbidden pleasures and learns the limitless lessons of desire.

Set in the era of the great mining empires of Colorado, and rich with humor, myth, and imagery, The Passions of Pearl is no fairytale, but here, dreams do come true, gloriously and quite explicitly . . .

Drake's Vocabulary

Drake — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:28:55 GMT

"You want to know where geeks come from. Well listen -- you don't find 'em. You make 'em."

--William Lindsay Gresham

So, what's a geek? Everybody knows that, right? The guy who taught us math and never took a bath (thank you , Tom Lehrer). The girl nobody talked to. The little redhead who collected bugs. Or maybe it's one of the smart kids who turned the term around and claimed it proudly, just like the hippies dubbed themselves freaks a generation earlier. Or maybe he's the only guy who can still program the mainframe, a card counter in Vegas, or the girl who was just elected President…

Geek's a word on the move, evolving through the language, but what did it mean first?

It might be from an old word Geck, that dates from at least the 1500s. Shakespeare uses "geeke," but after Bill, Geek is, at best, a rare term.

"Geek" apparently entered the language of mainstream American English in 1946, with the publication of a remarkable novel by a writer named William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley.

Nightmare Alley is a noir masterpiece, the story of a carnival grifter whose fate is tied to mankind's desire to believe in miracles. The novel is told in chapters that are named for the major arcana of the Tarot, The Fool, The Magician, and onward to the inevitable Hanged Man. Cleverly structured and told in dark, tight prose, Gresham's book is one of the great volumes of lurid fiction that make up the true literature of the 20^th Century. It is also one of the best artistic renditions of life in the twilight of the American carnival. I'm not even sure if the book is still in print, except as a Graphic Novel illustrated by underground legend Spain Rodriguez, but old paperbacks like the one below are easy enough to find.

The novel sold well enough but the word really infected the collective language lobe when the film version of Nightmare Alley was released in 1947. A mostly faithful adaptation of the book (lacking the literary touch of the Tarot theme and a believable ending), the film starred Tyrone Power, who bought the novel's film rights and championed the story as a starring vehicle for himself. Wisely, I suppose, because it's probably his best performance. Anyone who sees the film will carry the vision of the Geek with them long after the memory of the rest of the story has dimmed.

So what was a geek? In carny terms, a geek was a wildman, a "performer" who enacted crazy stunts, tearing his hair, foaming at the mouth, eating raw meat or even live animals. In Nightmare Alley, the Geek specializes in biting the heads off live chickens. In the 70s, the term "chicken-eating geek," reflected this more refined understanding of the term's specific meaning. The Geek was a symbol of the lowest depths of the human condition and of the cruelty of the crowd.

Funny how the meaning has changed, eh? Geek has an elite status in its most common usage now, an ultimate technician, a high priest of pop culture; in the words of one Urban Dictionary definer, "The people you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult.

"Embrace Geek power! You have nothing to lose but your chickens.

Review: Lost Girls by Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie

Angela Caperton — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:56:34 GMT

LOST GIRLS
Written by Alan Moore
Artwork by Melinda Gebbie
Published by Top Shelf Productions
Published June 2006
ISBN 978-1-891830-74-7
Graphic Novel
Erotica
Boxed Set
Original Price: $75

The literary myths of our childhood follow us into our adult lives, and it is an amazing thing to see those myths turned into art that is thought provoking and beautiful. The first time I remember this happening was many years ago when I read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s reshaping of Morgaine (Morgan Le Fey) from Arthurian legend in her fantasy novel, The Mists of Avalon.

Now in Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s incredible graphic novel Lost Girls, I have once again found not only childhood myth challenged, but used as a prism to explore concepts of what sex means – and more importantly – how we envision the varieties and variances of sexual fulfillment and fantasy.

Alan Moore does not conform to convention and relishes challenging it at every turn. Read one of his graphic novels (From Hell, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and you’ll see this and, while his graphic novels have been successful on the big screen, the movies are the palest of shadows compared to the intricate, detailed books that not only entertain immensely, but spark discussion, curiosity, and challenge conventional viewpoints.

In Lost Girls, Moore brilliantly explores the sexual lives of three famous heroines of children’s literature – Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Wendy from Peter Pan, and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Brought together by fate at an exclusive European hotel just before the outbreak of World War I, the three adult women soon discover within each other the seeds of connection – strong attraction, sexual need, and simple female companionship – and ultimately find the empowering support of each for the others.

Alice, now Lady Alice Fairchild, is undoubtedly the leader of the trio, an older middle-aged woman, sophisticated and, outwardly, completely unashamed of her sexuality, she leads the other two women into telling tales of their early sexual experiences, and it is through these stories, we see the familiar trappings of the childhood stories we grew up reading. The stories are told by each of the women as they enjoy various sexual adventures with each other.

Through those told by Alice, we learn of her indoctrination into sex at an early age, and how her rape by a friend of her father’s helped shape her attraction to other women. As Alice continues her stories, we learn also of her later exploitation at the hands of an older woman and we see through Gebbie’s art and Moore’s powerful, visual words, Alice’s Wonderland adventures as shaped by the sexual and drug induced encounters of the girl and young woman.   Giving voice to her past, Alice ultimately accepts who she is, her ownership of the choices she made as a youth and as an adult. Moore and Gebbie brilliantly bring the child back to the woman in a scene that is both visually stunning and rich in metaphor.

The adult Wendy is a repressed Victorian wife with an older husband, and of the three women, Wendy’s liberation from the shame of the past and the repressions of society are the most powerful. Wendy’s story also openly addresses some of the sexual taboos that writers dance around, but won’t honestly confront – child sex and pedophilia.   Peter, in Wendy’s telling, is an oversexed boy, one eager to have sex with other boys in the park, and who also fucks his sister (Tinkerbell) without compunction. Peter introduces Wendy and her brothers to sex and soon the three children become part of a surreal Neverland where the Lost Boys spend their days pleasuring each other, Peter’s sister, and Wendy. We also see Captain Hook as a man with a deformed hand, a pederast and abuser, who rapes Peter’s sister and some of the Lost Boys. Wendy’s eventual confrontation with Hook is a testament to bravery and the ultimate power of a woman’s sexuality. Through the adult Wendy’s stories we come face to face with innocence in its rawest form. Time and exposure shape our perception of right and wrong and, through Moore’s vision, we see that while the sex acts are adult in nature, the characters’ delight is child like. Moore tackles this incredibly challenging subject with a deftness that is practically otherworldly, and he reminds us subtly and not so subtly that these fantasies, these stories, are just that – stories, fictions told to entertain and to make a point.

And while Wendy’s story was, in my opinion, the most liberating, Dorothy’s story proved to be the most challenging to read, to absorb, and to come to terms with. Dorothy’s sexual exploits on her family farm start with her masturbating during a tornado, and the visual and verbal symbols show us the power of the orgasm. From there, she recounts her early sexual encounters with the farmhands and we see the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man all in turn, and as Dorothy recounts her tales of Kansas, we see her attempts to hide some secret within her past, but Alice – worldly and sharp as a pitchfork – presses Dorothy at the end to reveal all. And as the hotel is abandoned by the guests and staff due to the oncoming German invasion after Duke Ferdinand’s assassination, Dorothy – sexually exhausted and finally convinced by Wendy and Alice’s sincerity that nothing she tells them will shock them – makes her last confession.   In the story, Dorothy is not a victim of a lecherous man, but a willing participant in a challenging relationship. She opens up to her friends about her attraction, shares with them the excitement of the consummation, but ultimately also tells of her disappointment in the relationship as the shine wears off, and of the ultimate discovery of the relationship by others. Moore doesn’t pull any punches in this tale, and when the last page was turned on Dorothy’s story, I spent a considerable amount of time contemplating what I’d read, analyzing my reactions to it, and finally finding comfort in the powerful psychology of it.

Lost Girls is about more then just sex, sexual fantasy, sexual politics and taboos, it also examines the nature of innocence and the loss of that innocence on many levels –sexual, societal, and historical. At the highest level of its elaborate metaphor, the books are about Europe’s loss of innocence with the coming of WWI. I do not believe anyone besides Moore and Gebbie could have taken these themes and done a better job of creating not only a beautiful work of art, but also a story for the ages.

These graphic novels are not for the sex-squeamish, those who cannot be open-minded about sex, or those unwilling to look into the pages and possibly see their own fantasies staring back at them. Lost Girls is bold, beautiful, arousing and endlessly thought provoking, and if you’re a fan of erotica, of unflinching literature that explores challenging portrayals of sex and sexual fantasy, then these books are a must for your collection.

Drake's Bookshelf

Drake — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:39:15 GMT

Strange Angel, The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons, by George Pendle, 2005, hardback and paperback editions.

There are nexus points in history, crossroads where unlikely paths come together and then diverge again. At these junctions one can find exotic travelers, people who are not truly famous (or, more likely, who are famous for a time and then forgotten) but who make their marks on the map.

Jack Parsons was a quintessential example of this phenomenon in the middle of the 20^th Century. One of the fathers of solid rocket fuel, his experiments with controlled explosions were vital in the development of jet aircraft that helped win World War II. He was a founding member of the core of scientists working at CalTech in the late 30s whose work took man to the moon 30 years later.

But Jack Parsons had another life too. He was at the center of a group of California magicians who practiced the sex magick taught by Aleister Crowley and he performed epic rituals of ceremonial summoning to bring otherworldly beings into this world. He was also at the fringes of the group of writers, filmmakers, and futurists who helped establish science fiction as a literary genre.

At the peak of his financial and occult success, he owned a mansion on Orange Street -- a neighborhood of decaying palaces -- where he rented or gave rooms to a whole colony of writers and occultists including L. Ron Hubbard, who seems to have repaid Parsons' hospitality by running off with his girlfriend and a sizable chunk of his spare change.

Strange Angel is the Parsons' story. It’s the second book written about him, but far superior to Sex and Rockets, by John Carter, which was published in 2000. Pendle's writing is crisp and vivid and makes the diverse topics that filled Parsons' world interesting and understandable, no easy task with rocket science or the esoteric maze of Crowleyite occultism.

I think anyone who has ever been part of a group of science fiction fans will recognize Parsons -- a true seeker after knowledge who perhaps was not equipped with the best judgment skills. Pendle makes the case that Parsons was a modern alchemist, not seeing the distinction between the esoteric knowledge of explosive chemicals and the potential of trans-dimensional entities that hold the keys to hidden knowledge, a true believer that the world is more than it seems if only we push hard enough against the husk of reality.

A delightful book in every respect about a most fascinating traveler on the roads of 20^th Century culture.

Pulp Fantasies

Drake — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:51:41 GMT

One of my favorite blogs is Eros Blog (Be warned, if you follow the link, its title is apt and it is most gloriously NSFW). There have been a couple of discussions there recently about old pulp art and fetishism that hit home for me.

Here's an example of what they are talking about:

One of the Erosblog readers objected to an image of this sort as condoning violence to women and I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but that viewpoint completely misses the imaginative fantasy beyond the picture (not to mention the outlandish hyper-realism of it).

The image is undoubtedly erotic. The growing numbers of people who have intelligently embraced BDSM as a form of sexual expression (and fun) will certainly recognize that and many souls more repressed are stirred by the sight of a beautiful woman helplessly tied. Men are aroused by the image -- some of them by the sense of having power over the woman, but others simply by the story that the picture implies, a beautiful woman in distress, ready for ravishing or rescue, the essence of many tales. Some women will be aroused by the idea of being tied up, others intrigued by the idea of somehow overcoming the bonds and the menacing hand, escaping and defeating the wicked captors.

Does the picture reduce the woman to being the object of rough treatment for the purposes of entertainment? Maybe it does, but much creative fantasy -- including romance -- objectifies people or idealizes them. Arguably, our whole bureaucratic society objectifies people, and one of the things that saves us from a life as cold numbers is our imagination in all its variety.

Just to balance the scales, here's an equally beautiful image of a woman in full command of her world:

Viva variety!

No Moss

Angela Caperton — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:30:35 GMT

No, that title is not a butchered attempt to imitate Roberto Duran,
but it definitely is apt for the week I've had!

Besides getting back into the swing of things with my bill-paying job
(never an easy task post holiday season), and raising a kitten that
absolutely insists on playing with me at 2 AM (sorry, but I prefer my
middle of the night interrupters to be taller, have a lot less fur,
preferably not so sharp a set of claws and teeth, and a tongue that's
not the equivalent of 80-grit sand paper) I have been practically
obsessed finishing a new erotic short story as well as the erotic
paranormal novel I'm working on.

And I will be a featured author at TRS Blue in February! Look for
more details on that event soon!

Also, watch for my new erotic comedy, The Passions of Pearl, due out
in February from eXtasy Books!

Now, as you may have come to realize, the range of my interests (not
to mention Drake's interests!) have a very wide span. I really enjoy
the strange and unusual and one great source for the weird and bizarre
is one of my regular stops on the net - the British publication,
Fortean Times Magazine (you can get their print magazine at some
bookstores or comic book stores, or of course, subscribe. I have
found them at larger Barnes and Noble Bookstores). They definitely
cover the gamut from reported ghost sightings to cyrptozoology, myths
and urban legends, as well as off the wall history and current events.
Hey, where else can you find links to Ouija board art and read about
Chupacabra sightings in the same sitting?!

In order to view their online magazine, you need to register, but if
you like the strange, this is the place to go! Enjoy!

Now, back to writing.

See ya soon!

A New Year - Complete with Resolutions!

Angela Caperton — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 17:11:11 GMT

So it is we come to a New Year and new goals, new ambition, new vim and
vigor to tackle any project, overcome all obstacles! Nothing will turn
me from my ambitions, nothing will distract me! I am Woman and nothing
can stop me! I am steel and velvet, gold and fire! I am determined and
focused!

Ooh, look! Whipped Cream!

Whipped Cream on Peter…

Okay…time to back away from the Seventies' feminine anthems and fantasies
about dairy-covered centerfolds and maybe drop the hype down a floor or
two to the landing where reality resides.

Bummer.

As is so common around this time of year, I found myself evaluating the
past year and looking toward the one before me with a critical eye, one
that has a hunter's gaze upon my writing, but is not ignorant of the
environment in which I live, and all the things that inspire me.

I am satisfied with my work last year. Woman of the Mountain was
published in May 2007, and this past December, was selected as a
finalist in the 2008 EPPIEs.

In just over 2 months, we'll see if WotM has been found worthy of the
title EPPIE Winner. Wish me luck on that one folks, and any
recommendations to help curb nail biting will be gratefully welcomed,
because trust me, come March, there will be wear patterns in the carpet
and the fingernails, unless properly protected, will be consumed down
to the second knuckle.

Also, last year I completed my third story for publication, The Passions
of Pearl, an erotic comedy, and I am thrilled to say that it will be
released in February.

My goals are pretty much the same as those I've had ever since I
embraced the muse and began to write in earnest.

I will write the stories that are in me and give them the total of my
heart and spirit, let them breathe and live and grow, nurture them to
maturity, and when the time has come, I will let them go into the world.

I will do my best to balance my writing life and my personal life – a
juggling act that sometimes has been marked by bobbles and crashes that
have resulted in bruised feelings, tears, and misunderstandings.

I will try diligently not to resent my "day job" that pays the bills. I
like my job, but so often it is the case that when a story is spinning
in my head and heart, it is incredibly hard to wake in the morning, don
proper "business casual" attire, go into the office and then focus on
rates, surcharges, and invoices as opposed to thinking about Rose and
Nathan and the ever increasingly surreal dreams that have stalked them
both and driven them to such heated passionate exchanges! Hell, which
would you rather do all day?!

I will not miss an opportunity to embrace beauty and passion, to explore
my own desires and sexuality, and to hold tight to the one I love and
express my love in every way I know how to.

I've not been idle even in these early days of 2008. I'm working
diligently on an erotic paranormal/fantasy and am also working on my
promotion schedule for 2008. I am also at the beginning of the very
pleasant journey of raising a new baby – a 12-week old kitten named Jet
I adopted from the Humane Society a week before Christmas.

Look for Pearl in February, and stay tuned here for more from me and
from Drake!

The curtain's rising on another year.

Whatever will be behind it…?

Drake's Occasional Cinematic Musings

Drake — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:35:09 GMT

The Lookout

This is a writer's movie, directed by Scott Frank, who wrote Minority Report. Of all the things I love in a film, I may love brevity most, and this is a tight movie, with hardly a moment that isn't essential to the plot or to character development. It's 99 minutes of tense, noir drama.

Chris Pratt is a guy who has everything and who throws it away chasing beauty in one stupid act. Now he pays a heavy price every day, dealing with his own guilt and the damage he has done to himself. Chris has a fractured sense of sequence, of cause and effect, and he struggles with day-to-day life and still makes stupid decisions.

A group of very bad guys decide to enlist Chris for a robbery and the ensuing drama is nightmarish, exciting, and smart. The viewpoint is almost entirely Chris' and the story plays with the viewer's expectations of sequence and cause and winds to an exciting and satisfactory conclusion. A very, very fine first film.

Four stars.

The Hour Between the Years

Angela Caperton — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:37:49 GMT

The Hour Between the Years

Round the dial the shadows run
To trace the path of solstice sun
'Fore shadows claim the dial entire
And new moon climbs to heaven's spire.

This day, the shortest of the year
Marks the spinning of the sphere,
One cycle spent, its seasons done
The solar tale renewed, begun.

But in the hour when seasons turn
That hour when blue candles burn,
To mark the pass of time's own ghost
We'll offer up a timeless toast.

To hope, to light, an end to fears!
In that hour between the years,
The hour when beasts may speak as men,
And long-dead loved ones live again.

A sacred spoke upon the wheel,
When all we dream is seeming real,
Not yesterday, nor the days ahead,
But an endless skein of the weaver's thread.

I'll hold you in that timeless time
And bind you with enchanter's rhyme,
And time will stop, on this longest night,
And you will be my brightest light.

An hour, no more, oh precious span,
We cannot stay the sun's own plan,
No plea avails, time scorns our tears,
And we pass the hour between the years.

But longest night gives birth to day
And we resume our destined way,
Reborn and strong, bright as the sun,
Our hopes, our love, renewed, begun.

Copyright 2007 Angela Caperton
~~

A happy and healthy New Year to all,
and may your 2008 be full of adventure and pleasure!